


let's be alone together

by TroubledPro



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst I guess, M/M, louis is never actually named, this doesn't really have much plot, vague eating disorder reference
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:39:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TroubledPro/pseuds/TroubledPro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>And the boy who just padded out onto his concrete balcony, he had his own story. Lilac pouches drape from the frail skin beneath his tired, yet still shockingly blue, eyes. Even they are dulled in slight by the deadened clouds above, or maybe it could be the story behind his eyes that Harry is yet to figure out.<br/>He is in the building opposite, but Harry can tell that he is just as empty inside as he is.</i>
</p>
<p>or, alternatively, a story in which Harry is wasting away smoking on his balcony above the world and Louis frequents the balcony opposite him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let's be alone together

**Author's Note:**

> So hi. I've never written anything like this before, ie, I’ve never written anything that started off with no plot or plan whatsoever and also in present tense. I don’t really know what it is, to be honest, it is kind of heavy to read, angsty, and it doesn't really go anywhere, but I guess that fits the story anyway. Thank you to @hiswittlehands for being an amazing beta. I hope you all like it! Kudos/comments always appreciated. Thank you for reading! PS. The 85k one shot should be up soon, it is just in the process of being beta’d!

Little frayed strings branch from the hem of Harry’s sleeves. They drape over his hands, discoloured mustard yellow bleeding into the maroon hoops of thread all strung tightly together. A hole breaks their chain, just close to the folded hem. The collar hangs off his protruding collarbones. One catches the sharp edge of the bone, the other just falls loosely, like the teardrop that pools by the crease of his nostril. His skin is pulled tight over the exposed skin, silver with delicately painted, faded streams of turquoise.

His feet feel numb as they dangle down into the breeze. They are bare, pinked in a bid to scare away the cold. His thin thighs are trapped by the black metal bar of the gate. The cool bar pushes against his bones, crushing them, a grinding pain pulsing through his temples. His arms hug the vertical poles and his forehead rests in between two. His eyes trace the tiny people below him, the ones which scurry around and crash into flurries of people, spreading their busyness and their happiness, while all of the sadness is kept in a grey plume in the buildings above.

Smoke twists in the air, out of the amber tip of the cigarette and the plump pads of his lips. It blows back into his face, a suffocating mask lying over his nose but then quickly dissipating. It leaves a sting to his eyes, one that matches the prickling of tears that is already ever present.

Harry continues to watch the people. He watches them with dead eyes. It is busy. The city below is bustling, but everything above is still. It’s cloudy, grey, dull. He is so high that he is practically in the dusting of clouds. Nobody would look up into the bleakness. Nobody would try to decipher Harry’s.

He thinks of their personalities, their stories that they hold. They all have their own lives. They have their own families, their own friends. They have memories that they love, memories that they hate. They have moments of reminiscing a year, two, five, seventeen years ago. They have that certain song which grasps their heart and makes everything feel real. They have that person who makes everything seem okay. They all live in their own little bubble. Their worlds are tainted with different shades. Some of them are yellow, some are black and blue. Some are hiding away in the shadows of life, and some are standing in the spotlight. They have different influences, different impacts to the person next to them. They are all individuals, but they all blur together to Harry.

And the boy who just padded out onto his concrete balcony, he had his own story. His hair is slicked back meticulously into a high quiff. No hair is out of place, except for the tiny caramel strand that tickles at his preened eyebrows. His clothes are strangely formal for the grubby building that he lives in, but somehow it seems fitting. The white, crisp shirt is pulled over his chest and the black dress trousers contrast with his tanned skin. His tie is loose and hanging as two, black silk strips just beside the skin that the partially unbuttoned shirt exposes.

There are creases in between his eyebrows and a heavy wrinkle marring his forehead. His lips are pressed into a straight line, but part as he brings a tab to his lips and lights it expertly. He breathes in the toxic smoke and breathes out a sigh of relief in return. Lilac pouches drape from the frail skin beneath his tired, yet still shockingly blue, eyes. Even they are dulled in slight by the deadened clouds above, or maybe it could be the story behind his eyes that Harry is yet to figure out.

He is in the building opposite, but Harry can tell that he is just as empty inside as he is.

The boy is blatantly unaware of Harry’s wandering eyes. His hands grip the railing, knuckles whitening, muscles straining. All of his weight is pushing against the rusted metal. If it were to give way, the boy would be dangling seventeen floors up. Would he hang on? Harry thinks that he would. There is something behind his eyes, behind the exhaustion and diminished motivation. Harry knows what it looks like because he used to have it, and it is a stark difference to what his are like now.

Harry continues smoking his tab, continues letting the tears well up in his eyes and then sink back half a minute later. They do that sometimes. He would like to know why, but at the same time, he would not. It is easier to be oblivious and empty of knowledge than to be informed and full of thoughts.

The wind picks up and attacks his thin skin. It chills him to the bone, even through the ratty jumper that he has not changed out of in days, weeks, months. His stomach has become accustomed to the permanent curling it has to do to keep it going. Harry wonders when it will feed off the nicotine that streams through his veins practically every second of the day. He cannot hear the car horns blaring anymore from down below, more cotton wool is stuffed into his ears with every blink his eyes take.

The boy sinks down, hands still gripping onto the bar across the railing, cigarette perpendicular and ash flitting down in flurries when he flinches. Harry watches him try and gather himself together. He is not close enough to see the twitching behind his eyelids or the flaring of his nostrils, but he can feel the tension the boy holds from across the air. In an apparent bout of anger, annoyance, or some kind of frustration, the boy sucks in a harsh, elongated drag of his cigarette. The orange head brightens as he breathes in, but rapidly dies when he draws it from his lips and stubs it out on the ground.

Harry swings his legs back and forth and sighs through barely parted lips. His tab is close to burning out, but there is a solid pack on the neon plastic chair so he could not really care that it was wasting away into the air, just like himself, really. The boy looks troubled and Harry does not know what else to do except stare at his cutting jaw and thick thighs.

He looks down at his own. There is a gap between them, practically the width of one thigh. His jeans hang off him and his legs bow out. The buckle of his belt digs into his concaving stomach. He has not felt his skin in a long while. He wonders if the boy opposite him can tell him how it feels, but then he realises that he does not even know the boy’s name, and does not know if he ever wants to know.

Glancing over to the boy again, he sees that he has moved. His back is resting on the side railing of the balcony and his legs are out in front of him, ankles crossed. He is bare foot, just like Harry. Harry is unsure as to whether it is his eyes blurring from the small distance or whether it is in fact real, but the boy’s fingers tremble as he holds another cigarette between them. Sounds are still muffled to Harry, they normally are, but he hears the groan of frustration when the boy flicks his lighter consecutive times, every push of his thumb resulting in failure. The boy shakes the turquoise plastic lighter a few times and tries again, but, to no avail, it does not light.

Harry notices the signs of frustration with every flicker of his eye around the boy’s body. His fingers tighten around the rolled tab. His eyes crease at the corners. His eyebrows furrow and canyons bury themselves in the golden skin. His lips press together and his nose scrunches up. His left foot twitches to the side, knocking the right. His shoulder rises slightly, merely centimetres higher and just for a split second. His breathing heavies, his chest moving, in, out, in, out.

“Do you want my lighter?”

Harry has said the words before he has even realised. They are out of his mouth and catapulting themselves over to the other boy’s balcony, flying through the air and settling on the concrete beside him. Harry does not know when he had last spoken before then, his jaw feels stiff and his tongue feels heavy as it unpeels from the ribbed roof of his mouth. His eyelids droop in a lazy blink as he stares at the boy, surprise underneath his skin but not showing through the grey dusk.

His voice is not all that strong, not since he has not spoken in days, weeks, months, but the boy catches it with a sharp, shocked  look upwards and over to him. His face is pinched, whether that is in the frustration that had festered beforehand or in annoyance that Harry has just spoken to him. It is just then that Harry realises that their balconies are closer than he first previously thought. He can see the dip of a shadow just by the cut of the boy’s cheekbone and the smattering of cinnamon colour in amongst the caramel of his hair.

The boy coughs, clears his throat, something like that. “Yeah, thanks,” is all he says.

His voice is raspy underneath the higher tone. Maybe it is the smokes, or maybe he is just tired. Harry wonders whether his reason for being out on his own balcony and smoking fiercely is because of this. The cigarettes might give him a boost, a drop of energy to carry on the rest of the day. Harry has gone past the point of getting that, he only smokes to give himself something to do. Harry wonders how different they are, how different he is to the boy on the balcony next door.

His hand scrambles for the lighter. The rectangular plastic box feels cool in his clutch, in his calloused palm. The valleys that crease his skin are deep and dark. They stand out on the grey canvas, almost like the wires that run overheard that slice the dreary sky. He does not even think about the metres and metres of empty air below them, does not think about the lack of flare in his chest as he interacts for the first time in days, weeks, months. He throws it out into the unforgiving air. It lands with a clatter a pace to the side of the boy’s feet.

Harry’s eyes drift to the ground again, from the blur on the other balcony to the blur below. The muffling of his ears is dissipating somewhat, so he can hear the flick of the lighter turning on and the dull roar of the city below. His feet drag in the air and he spreads his toes, cool air rushing in between to bite the thin skin. He can feel eyes on him, but instead of acknowledging it, he watches as his eyes move from focused to unfocused around the outline of his long feet.

The boy does not say anything, and neither does Harry. Surprisingly enough, disconcertingly enough, Harry is starting to feel the rattling of his ribs as his heart thumps. He has not felt those tiny waves of vibrations in days, weeks, months. The feeling festers in the join of his jaw and the curve of his ear. It tickles and itches but even though his fingers are cigarette free, he refuses to scratch his bitten nails over the skin. He would probably peel off the rusted metallic sheen and display a blackened red in its wake.

His presence is unnerving. The boy’s, that is. It is obvious, unmoving, _there_. Harry has not had anyone that close to his own body, even be it metres away, in days, weeks, months. But at the same time, it is calm. It is calm above the city, in Harry’s head, around the boy’s aura.

“Do you want this back?” says the voice.

“It’s okay,” Harry murmurs weakly. His voice is directed to the world below, through the prison grill the balcony wears, but the boy still hears. Harry sees him nodding in acceptance out of the corner of his eye. His quiff bobs and there is a twist to his lips. Harry would smile but he has not done that in days, weeks, months. He sniffs. A tear dribbles down his cheek. He is not sure why.

“Are you alright?” he hears.

“Of course,” Harry replies, still staring at the ground.

“You don’t look it.” It is blunt and frank and it is just what Harry imagined the boy to be like. His eyes are sharp and his body is lean. Harry can practically feel the whirring of his mind and the spiralling of his thoughts. He is the type to think, think, and then think again. He is constantly on the go and he drags whoever he likes with him, just because he can. Harry wonders whether he would like to be stolen by the boy and pulled into his life. Anything would be better than the daze he lives in now.

“Yeah, well,” sighs Harry, because, really, what else can he say?

Harry looks up from the world and over to the opposite balcony. The boy flicks some ash from his tab after blowing out billows of smoke. “It is what it is, yeah?”

“Something like that,” Harry says, just staring.

The caramel haired boy scoffs and shakes his head to himself. Then, he bursts. “I went through hours of excruciating pain to get that tattooed on my chest, right? And, like, nobody gave a fucking shit about it. So I was pissed off, naturally, because I’d been going on about getting this ink for months and months and everyone urged me to get it, saying how cool it would look and shit, but when I actually went through with it, nobody gave a flying fuck. And that’s not fucking fair, I don’t think, not fair at all.”

“Life isn’t fair, though, is it?” Harry replies, shrugging indifferently.

“Too fucking right.”

And then there is silence while their cigarettes burn to the filter and the ground lowers below them. Harry has three modes of view: the world beneath him, the amber tip of his tab, and the piercing blue eyes opposite him.

They part without a goodbye, without an acknowledgement of the other.

The boy pads back into his world, and Harry meanders back into his own. He still does not know his name, but he knows that they are both just as empty as each other.

-|-

He’s there again, the boy, three days later. Harry is sitting there, dangling his legs above the real world and trying not to let the bleakness of below bite at his toes. He can hear the hustle and bustle below, but he blocks it out with the scent of sweat soaked clothes, bitter coffee, and stale tobacco.

The boy is in similar attire to last time. His trousers are navy blue and his untied tie is a shiny grey, a colour akin to the skin behind Harry’s ears. He looks up after his lighting his cigarette and locks onto Harry’s figure. Harry does not react, not on the outside or on the inside.

He replicates his position from last time, facing Harry. This time, though, he stares at the curly (tatty, greasy) haired boy, eyes squinting. Harry can feel his skin crawling at the base of his neck but he keeps looking down instead.

“It’s supposed to rain,” the boy says, taking a drag of his tab.

Harry barely nods, just a twitch upwards of his head and the scraping of his forehead on the railings. His blinking pattern stutters at the speech that breaks through the suffocating clouds of above, but he does not reply.

“It rained on the day my step-dad left. And when I first moved here. And when I got my job. And when I got fired. And then that again, twice more. And when I crushed my knee in that crash. And when I met Michael _._ And then when I saw him fucking _‘Chantelle from the coffee shop, I thought you knew she sucked me off whenever you were too tired?’_ Yeah, too tired because I’m working my arse off to pay for your half of the rent, you fucking knob.”

Harry looks up belatedly to see the boy’s head tilted back and swirls of smoke tumbling from between his lips. His skin is worn and his eyes are tired, but his atmosphere is like fire and it is close to igniting something in Harry. Close.

He decides that the boy is very pretty.

“You’re pretty.”

The boy looks up, surprised. His eyes twinkle for a second and then shut down automatically. That does not prevent a smile curling his lips; it’s a wary one, though, at that.

“Thanks. You are, too,” is how he replies, so easily. He breathes out the words as he breathes out a plume of smoke. It is easy, somehow. “Rain is shit.”

Harry twists his hands around the metal railings, feeling the ridges cut into his skin and rub them raw. “That’s true.” He looks down again to see two dots joining. They are hugging after a two week separation; one went on a work trip to Spain while the other looked after their pet rabbit that their ex bought them for Christmas.

“I don’t trust it.”

“Don’t trust what?” Harry asks, eyes flitting towards the boy.

“Rain.”

Harry hums. He does not agree, nor disagree. He does not care. “I don’t care.”

“I know,” says the boy. He stubs out his cigarette and stands up. His hands run down his legs to smooth out the creases in his trousers and then his bare feet are stepping back into the threshold of his own life.

It did not rain.

-|-

“Do you ever change out of that jumper?” is what greets Harry five days later.

The boy steps outside in his loosened shirt, undone tie, and dress trousers combination, and shoots the words upon first glance at Harry. The edge of the sleeve is even more frayed. The hole has swallowed the hem so a tear rips the sleeve to a distorted shape.

“Not really,” answers Harry with honesty.

“Why?” the boy inquires, cocking his head to the side.

Shrugging, Harry says, “I dunno.”

He lights up a tab and leans on the railing. “Do you have a job?”

Blank is Harry’s face, as per usual. “I dunno,” he repeats. The world swirls beneath him. His feet sway with the waves rocking in his head.

“You don’t know?” the tone of his companion’s voice is somewhat sarcastic, condescending, maybe. If Harry looks up, he is sure that he will see the raised eyebrow, the tilted head with the deflating quiff toppling to one side, and curious eyes. He does not, though, because his eyes are losing focus and he is too busy trying to reel himself back in to the world that he lives in, not the one hundreds of feet away.

“I stopped going one day, so I dunno.”

“You just...stopped?”

“Yeah,” Harry murmurs, suddenly engrossed in the thread that pierced the air like the dagger that split open his chest and drained him of everything.

The boy is obviously confused by the way that he fish-mouths a few times and takes only a small drag of his tab. “But how do you _live_?”

It is silent, for a short while. A small bubble ruptures the calm waves that ripple through Harry’s atmosphere, and the boy’s, too, he supposes. Harry just stares at the cable of material that has taken his focus, distracts him while he thinks. Not that it is proper thinking, but it is enough to budge the cogs in his mind to let out a gut-wrenching squeal.

“I don’t.”

They do not say anything after that.

The words ring true to both of them.

-|-

There is a flock of birds flying overhead when the boy steps out two days later. They squawk and bat their wings with a loud slap. The wind rushes along with them and blows in the loose curls of Harry’s hair. He looks up and follows their path. Down below is forgotten, up above is much more interesting.

The sky is clear bar the birds and the odd dusting of cloud. The flock is dense and loud, similar to the world below, in a way, except a lot more graceful. His eyes flicker from the birds to the boy, but resume their prior view within a second. The flicker breaks the show and loses Harry’s concentration on the white feathers, but he can sense the boy staring upwards, too, and that makes his body sag and the knots in his shoulders loosen of slight.

They pass quickly, flying away into the distance. Both sets of eyes keep watching as they twist and turn until they are swallowed by the sky. Harry swallows thickly and looks down. His head dizzies with the sudden change in perspective. He feels it rattle his skull. The notion interests him, but a voice breaks his inquisitiveness with the workings of his own body, a one he has no connection with.

“Have you heard the new Fall Out Boy album?”

Harry glances up and over. His pupils feel like they are vibrating for a split second. Thin wreaths of silver smoke curl from the boy’s lips. The dulled shade veils his face, but his eyes pierce the cloak and his skin does not blend in like it would with Harry’s.

“No,” Harry says simply.

“Do you want to?”

“I dunno.”

Harry then looks down at his lap as he fumbles with the cardboard box that holds his cigarettes. He slides one out and balances it between his paled lips. Hands cupping around the head, he lights it after a few attempts. Everything is always after a few attempts. It feels comfortable between his fingers and his lips. It is the only comfortable thing that he has felt in days, weeks, months.

“You should listen to it. I think you’d like it,” says the boy matter-of-factly. His tab is shrivelling up fast, whereas Harry’s is just a slow burner. Harry wonders whether that symbolises something, but then remembers that he does not care even if it does.

“Why?” he asks. His voice is monotone and uninterested; it does not betray how he feels inside. He wishes it was a facade.

“I dunno,” mimics the boy, adding in a shoulder shrug for good measure and a widening of the eyes to try and prove a point, or something like that, anyway.

One corner of Harry’s lips twists up slightly. The few degrees are enough to give the boy a triumphant look on his face. Harry does not understand why, but he dare not let himself ask. It was funny, the impersonation. But Harry has not had to express that emotion in days, weeks, months, so it is a foreign notion to him, just as it is expressing any emotion, in fact.

The faint tone of a phone ringing bleeds into Harry’s world. They glance at the glass door of the boy’s flat, eyeing it warily. Instead of shuffling inside like Harry expects, the boy just turns back around and leans on the black railings, staring down.

“Are you not going to get that?” Harry asks as the ringing continues.

The boy shakes his head and breathes out clusters of smoke. “Nope,” he says with a pop of the ‘p’.

“It might be important,” murmurs Harry. He swings his legs and watches the world blur around his feet.

“Not as important as this.” It is somewhat cryptic and finite. It puzzles Harry when the blue eyes flit up to him and then to the cigarette cushioned between his bony fingers, and once again back to Harry. Harry does not understand. A tickle scratches the hollow of his chest. He does not ask.

-|-

They carry on like that for days, weeks, months.

-|-

Harry likes to be above the chaos, above the clouds. So does the boy.

One night, when the sky has been stroked by navy-inked fingertips and droplets of silver prick the darkness, they sit and breathe. Harry asks the boy what he smells, what he tastes on the back of his tongue. The boy says smoke, musty aftershave, and vanilla. Harry tells him that he smells more than just smoke. He smells the calm of night. He describes it through slow, drawled sentences, barely strung together with clarity. He talks about the eye-tingling freshness and the throat-catching chill. The boy nods as he explains smell of the stars and the vast expanse of blackened air. He understands.

It becomes a thing. Their balconies are close, but worlds apart. Harry gets to hear about the other side of the sky, the land of the unknown. He gets to work his brain for once, click it into place and let the cogs creak. The words filter through the neglected cavities inside of his head and settle there for a short while. They try to replicate their meaning and make Harry feel. It does not work, but the boy is always staring back at him when he flutters open his eyelids. He is left with a woolly ache afterwards, but the smoke is there to clear it.

-|-

It is an unsaid, unwritten, rule. It is how their _thing_ works. It is what they do. It is how they are.

But somehow the boy disregards it with a hot puff of smoke and a long stare down at the world below.

“Why are you here?”

Harry feels something. He feels something in his chest for the first time in days, weeks, months. It is disconcerting, somewhat, and shocking, also. It reverberates around his whole body and he lets his heavy gaze watch the whorls of action under his feet. He does not want to crush the world with his bare skin, but the world rises upwards upon the boy’s command, the boy’s question.

He feels his heart thump.

It is so impersonally personal. It is a proper question, a one that has been conjured up for days, weeks, months. Harry knows that it has been pondered upon many a time, he can tell by the tone and the placement of the words. How he can, he does not know, does not care, but he just can. Maybe it is the look in the boy’s eye when he flicks his gaze up and onto him, or maybe he can just sense it.

It takes him a while to answer, but when he does, it is the truth.

“I dunno.”

And it is funny how receptive the boy is. It is funny how he seems to know. It is funny how he truly understands.

It is not a lacklustre answer, or a dismissal. Harry’s voice is not blasé or indifferent. It holds something in between the notes on its stave, a secret message that the boy catches.

Because Harry does not understand. He does not understand why he is there. He does not understand why he is how he is. He does not even understand how he is. He does not understand why he has not left the house in days, weeks, months. He does not understand why he wears the same jumper every day. He does not understand why he let the boy in.

But, somehow, the boy does, and that makes Harry feel.

-|-

It is not a case of progression. After that, thousands of personal questions do not come rushing in. They go back to normal – something which Harry can hardly believe is something he is saying. They frequent each others’ presence often enough to create a ‘normal’, but it still sits funny in Harry’s stomach, because nothing has been normal for days, weeks, months.

Talking increases at a natural pace. They do not now suddenly chatter for hours, silence is still ever-present in their time together. They sit above the world and smoke away their thoughts. Harry feels even more away from the world, but in a good way, now that the boy has become somewhat of a permanent feature with him in the clouds. He likes the way that he can feel eyes trained onto his swinging feet and pouting lips. He does not like the curious eyes that dip into the deep valleys either side of his collarbones or see through his skin, but he has always known that good most definitely, always comes with the bad.

Once, he wondered whether it was bad. He pondered over whether it was a bad thing to have someone looking at the careless imperfections (problems) and trying to figure them out, figure out a way to fix them. Nobody had before, so he reasoned it with why anybody would now. But then he realised that it made no difference either way, whether it was good or bad, because the boy would continue grazing his eyes over the silver skin anyway, and Harry would keep telling himself not to enjoy it.

Sometimes they talk about the world below; sometimes they talk about their world in the air. Sometimes it is mindless, the majority of the time that is so, but the odd time brings a question or answer that holds something dearer than the honest yet indifferent truth. Small snippets of information fly over to Harry’s balcony and straight into a curl-draped ear. Whether they go straight out of the other ear is a different matter, but they settle for a little while in a warm nook of his head. (The majority stay. They fill his head, clutter it, mess it up. It makes him less empty, even if he does not realise it.)

-|-

“I brought you something.” is what is said, and then a packet falls just inside of the balcony with a put-put-put on the ground.

Harry’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. Abstract, not physical, things have flown over to his little coven above the world, but nothing with weight and worth. He stares at the crumpled box. The corners are folded in on themselves and the front panel is straining against the warning words plastered over its top layer of skin.

Cautiously, he reaches for it. He takes a sparing glance over towards the boy to see him settled in his original place, legs splayed onto the concrete and cigarette hanging out of his lips. The box is familiar between his fingers but burns like ice to the touch simply because it is not his. He has not held anything that does not belong to him in days, weeks, months. (That includes more than just objects, and his heart is starting to realise that.)

He brings the rectangular box closer. Nothing seems abnormal or different to the hundreds of similar boxes that lay empty and neglected in his overflowing bin. Their organs and muscles have been stolen by his lips, abused by his lungs, and now they lie within the darkened confinements that hold nothing worth of rot.

As he twists it in between his fingers, he notices a scratching in the plastic skin on the lid. It is shaped like an arrow, pointing downwards and evidently into the box. Harry looks up at the boy, who is staring at him, waiting, anticipating, studying him. He then takes a peek down below, just for good measure, just to feel the dizzying in his head pump through to the veins in his neck and curdle behind his ears.

The tips of his skinny bones lift up the lid. He first sees the cylindrical heads of the cigarettes, all lined up neatly, orderly. There are twenty. He briefly wonders what it is like to have such form and function, such importance to decrepit souls. He has not felt that in days, weeks, months, has not felt anything of the like, in fact.

It is not until the cardboard lid flicks backwards that he notices the inscribed words that paint the white. They are stark, obvious. They shout at him. He can imagine the tonsils vibrating and the mouth wide. When they register in his, somewhat abandoned, mind, they are heavy and dense. The particles that form them are tightly packed and act like armour to protect the weakened insides that coil around each other in protection. They are a suicide bomb, waiting for the pin to be pulled. Harry wonders whether the chemicals are red with fated blood or heavy passion.

**Leave with me**

That is it. That is all that is there. In chicken scratch writing, scrawled over a few times to thicken the lines, are words that are light with confusion but weighty with ambiguous meaning. 

“What the fuck?” is what Harry says first. His thumb rubs against the etched ink and his mind notes that it does not smudge. His eyes are squinting as they read the words, focused entirely on the graphology of the words, more so than the meaning. He dare not try and figure out why they were there and what they meant, instead he decides to try and ensure that what he is seeing is actually true. The words are blurred around the edges and there is space dust cracking behind his eyes. Everything feels surreal and strange. (He does not realise that he feels.)

“Leave with me,” the boy repeats, as if that is not what Harry just read and became befuddled over.

“ _What?_ ” Harry asks again, this time even more confusion laced through his voice.

“Leave with me. Leave the house, the street, the city, the country, fuck, leave the bloody continent with me for all I care. Just leave with me.”

Harry stares blankly at him. The boy has crawled to the railing so he can replicate Harry’s position. His legs hang shorter than Harry and his bare feet swing a little less in the air. He looks down for a second and judges his perspective. Harry watches his lips twitch. He wants to know why.

The boy looks up again and blows out smoke that thinly masks his face. Harry watches in fascination as it curls around his features and contrasts with his eyes. He watches the movement of his lips as they purse around the end of the tab. His cheeks hollow and Harry feels something spark up his right bicep. The smoke curtain is sinks into the air again, unlike how Harry feels, shockingly enough.

“Why?” queries Harry with a tilt of his head.

It takes a few moments for the boy to answer. Harry can see the thoughts rolling around inside of his head and the arguments counteracting any reasons that surface. Eventually, though, he speaks with truth clinging onto every syllable and hope hovering in the background.

“I dunno.”

And the thing is, is that that hits Harry harder than it should. He can feel a shudder run down the thin skin that barely covers the protruding knobs of his spine. He can feel the thumping of his heart. He can feel the pulse drumming in his temples. He can feel the smoke tumbling down his throat and coating the muscle. He can feel his eyes flitting between the boy and down below. He can feel his mind whirring and thinking. He can _feel._  

For days, weeks, months, Harry has been unable to feel. He has been numbed to the very core. But then this caramel haired, work clothes-wearing, blue eyed boy slips into his life without him even realising and he is gradually levered into the pool of emotions. The liquid blisters his skin. It curves around his sharp edges and softens them with care. It bleeds into his skin until he is tainted with gold, not silver. It slips through his hair and replaces deadened strands with expensive silk. It drenches his jumper and tempts the thread into neatness. It is addictive like nicotine but soothes his lungs with careful fingers instead of scratching nails. It seeps into his eyes and gives him life.

 “Yes.”

-|-

Harry never gets his lighter back, but he thinks that it will take days, weeks, months, years, a lifetime for him to care.

 

 


End file.
